The Roots of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The ELCA, along with
other Lutheran churches, can trace its roots directly to the Protestant
Reformation that took place in Europe in the 16th century. Martin
Luther, a German monk, became aware of differences between the Bible and
church practices of the day. His writings, lectures and sermons inspired
others to protest church practices and call for reform.
By the late 1500s the Reformation had spread throughout Europe.
Followers of Martin Luther's teachings were labelled
"Lutherans" by their enemies and adopted the name themselves.
Lutheran beliefs became widespread, especially in Germany and the
Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland),
later spreading throughout the world as early explorers took their faith
with them on their voyages. Lutheranism came to the Americas that way;
some of the earliest settlers in the Americas were Scandinavians, Dutch
and German Lutherans. The first permanent colony of them was in the West
Indies, and by the 1620s there were settlements of Lutherans along the
Hudson River in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey.
As people migrated to the New World they continued to speak and worship
in their native languages and use resources from their countries of
origin. Europeans from a particular region would migrate to a particular
region in America and start their own churches. As the number of these
congregations grew, scattered groups would form a "synod" or
church body, and as the nation expanded so did the number of Lutheran
church bodies.
By the late 1800s the 20 or so Lutheran church bodies that would
eventually merge to become The American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran
Church in America had been established. Massive immigration from
traditionally Lutheran countries had started, and between 1840 and 1875
alone 58 Lutheran synods were formed in the U.S.!
There were "revivalist" and "confessional" movements
within Lutheran churches in Europe and in America, and as Lutherans
migrated to this country they were influenced by the
"fundamentalist" movement here. Consequently, there developed
a wide variety of expressions of Lutheranism in North America.
Nineteenth century Lutherans still looked to their homelands to supply
pastors and worship materials, but as second and third generation
Americans spoke English more than German, Norwegian or Danish, a need
arose to provide formal theological training, hymnals, catechisms and
other materials.
As early as 1812 the North Carolina Synod had inquired about the
possibility of better intersynodical cooperation, and that synod worked
with Pennsylvania publishing houses and the new theological seminary at
Gettysburg rather than set up its own support systems.
Cooperative Work Begins
Immigration of Lutherans continued to be heavy through the first two
decades of the 20th century, and the first significant mergers of church
bodies happened in 1917 when three Norwegian synods joined to form the
Norwegian Lutheran Church of America (NLCA) and in 1918 when three
German synods joined to form the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA).
With World War I taking place, the next logical step in denominational
consolidation was to form a joint agency of these two large synods and
other smaller ones in order to provide relief.
The National Lutheran Commission had been formed in 1917 because the
churches were concerned about the spiritual well-being of U.S. service
personnel being sent into combat. In a short time 60,000 laymen were
involved in the effort, which proved a vast and complex enterprise. The
laymen stayed active in the relief and ministry of the commission, but
formed their own organization, the Lutheran Brotherhood, which supported
the work of the commission by building facilities and supplying
equipment. After the war the Lutheran Brotherhood continued to develop
lay leadership and to foster intersynodical relationships.
The various Lutheran churches, with the exception of the Synodical
Conference, continued to work together closely, but were limited to
soldiers' and sailors' welfare efforts. There was a growing need to
provide missionaries to America's expanding industrial centers and to
render aid to Lutherans in Europe, and by September 1918 the National
Lutheran Council (NLC) was formed to meet those needs. Representation on
the council was proportionate, based on membership figures of
participating church bodies.
The Early 20th Century
For the first 12 years of its existence, the NLC concentrated on
overseas relief programs, then from about 1930 through the entry of the
United States into World War II it developed its domestic programs. In
1945 it reorganized and expanded the work it did on behalf of the
participating churches. In addition to the refugee and chaplaincy work,
the council provided coordination of establishing new congregations,
town and country ministry, student services, public relations and
uniform statistical reporting, among other services. In 1930 three
churches with German origins had merged to form the American Lutheran
Church, which had become one of the eight member churches in the NLC,
along with the ULCA.
As cooperative work proved beneficial to all the participants, and as
the 32 councilors continued to meet on a regular basis, other areas of
commonality naturally surfaced. In the late '40s and '50s there were
proposals by the ULCA and Augustana to merge all the member churches of
the NLC, and although they failed, in 1952 the American Lutheran
Conference Joint Union Committee presented the document The United
Testimony to its member churches, agreeing they were in "essential
agreement" with the positions of the ULCA and the Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod. The next round of mergers occurred in the early
'60s.
The '60s and '70s
In 1960 the American Lutheran Church (German), United Evangelical
Lutheran Church (Danish) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Norwegian)
merged to form The American Lutheran Church (ALC). The Lutheran Free
Church (Norwegian), which had dropped out of merger negotiations, came
into the ALC in 1963.
In 1962 the ULCA (German, Slovak and Icelandic) joined with the
Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church (Swedish), Finnish Evangelical
Lutheran Church and American Evangelical Lutheran Church (Danish) to
form the Lutheran Church in America (LCA).
Meanwhile, the Lutheran World Federation's (LWF) 1957 resolve to study
contemporary Roman Catholicism with the possibility of entering "interconfessional
conversations," and the reforms proposed by the Second Vatican
Council, led to a series of theological dialogues. Lutherans also
accepted the invitation of Reformed churches (Presbyterian) in America
to begin discussions of possible pulpit and altar fellowship. The
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), not a member church of the NLC or
the LWF, participated in these ecumenical dialogues at the national
level, and joined the NLC churches in 1967 to form the Lutheran Council
in the U.S.A. (LCUSA).
A New Player Takes the Field
The LCMS, firmly rooted in confessional conservatism and relatively
unchanged since its organization in 1846-47 as "The German
Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States,"
stood firmly on its belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. "A Brief
Statement" had been adopted in 1932, stating:
Since the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, it goes without saying
that they contain no errors or contradictions, but that they are in all
their parts and words the infallible truth ...
"Historical criticism," an understanding that the Bible must
be understood in the cultural context of the times in which it was
written, was gaining ground in both Europe and America. Trouble was
brewing in the LCMS as some seminary professors began to adopt
historical critical methods in their classrooms. A new seminary
president with experience in inter-Lutheran and ecumenical affairs was
challenged by the new conservative synodical president. Athree-year
investigation ensued and the 1972 convention voted to censure the
faculty. In 1974 the seminary president was suspended and many
seminarians and faculty left the seminary to continue their work in
another setting, forming "Seminex," a seminary-in-exile.
Meanwhile, a moderate movement in LCMS called Evangelical Lutherans in
Mission (ELIM) was formed.
The issue of whether or not to ordain graduates of Seminex led to the
removal of four district presidents at the 1975 convention, and by 1976
the moderates had gathered forces to form the Association of Evangelical
Lutheran Churches (AELC). Approximately 300 congregations and 110,000
people moved into the AELC from LCMS with a stated goal from the
beginning of promoting unity with the ALC and LCA.
In 1977 the LCMS decision to place fellowship with ALC "in
protest" along with the AELC's "Call to Lutheran Union"
nudged the three church bodies, ALC, LCA and AELC, toward merger. The
1978 ALC and LCA conventions adopted resolutions aimed at the creation
of a single church body. The AELC joined them, and the ALC-LCA Committee
on Church Cooperation became the Committee on Lutheran Unity (CLU) in
January of 1979.
Presiding Bishop David Preus (ALC), Bishop James Crumley (LCA) and
President and later Bishop William Kohn (AELC) met with the CLU over the
next 16 months, and the 1980 conventions of all three church bodies
adopted a two-year study process. Documents were in the hands of
congregational leaders by November of that year, and by 1982 all the
pieces were in place for the three churches to have simultaneous
conventions so that, on September 8, 1982, with telephone hookups so
each could hear the others' votes, all three church bodies voted to
proceed on the path toward a new Lutheran church.
The ELCA Takes Shape
The CLU proposals included the structure and operating procedures for a
new group, the Commission for a New Lutheran Church (CNLC), and a
timetable for the churches:
The 1984 conventions to discuss, review, and respond to a statement of
theological understandings and ecclesial principles, and a narrative
description of the new church;
The 1986 conventions to discuss, review, and respond to the articles of
incorporation of the new church, the constitution and bylaws of the new
church, and be able to take action to cease functioning by Dec. 31,
1987.
The 70-member CNLC, its members deliberately chosen to be widely
representative of the membership of all the merging bodies, met 10 times
over the next five years, making full reports which were widely
disseminated to church members.
By August 1986 the CNLC had completed its work and again the three
church bodies met in simultaneous conventions, again with telephone
hook-ups, and voted overwhelmingly to accept the constitution and bylaws
of the new church as well as the proposed agreement and plan of merger,
thus creating the fourth largest Protestant body in the United States.
William Kohn had retired, and the new AELC bishop, Will Herzfeld,
steered that church body through its final vote and the months of
transition to follow. The 10-member Transition Team met 15 times in the
process, hiring a coordinator and settling issues such as specific
location, staffing and budget for the new church.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was finally born at its
constituting convention in Columbus, Ohio, April 30-May 3, 1987. The
three churches had "closing conventions" the day before,
taking care of constitutional matters and saying good-bye. In the four
days of the first convention of the new church delegates finalized legal
details and elected the ELCA's first bishop, Herbert Chilstrom, other
officers and 228 other people to various boards, councils and
committees.
At 12:01 a.m., Central Standard Time, January 1, 1988, the ELCA became
the legal successor to its predecessors, a mosaic reflecting not only
the ethnic heritages of traditional Lutherans through its original
churches, but also the full spectrum of American culture in which it
serves, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.
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